Greenville City staff on Thursday presented a proposed tree-planting program and a new urban forest comprehensive plan to the City Council, outlining site-by-site plantings, data tools and a consultant-led process to guide planting and private-property outreach.

Will (PRT director) and Drew Young (urban forester) said the city will target roughly 1,600 new plantings across parks and rights-of-way and continue its public giveaway program. "That's our total plan of of planting of of 1,600 here, roundabout," Drew said. He also reported that the city has given away 825 trees this fall and will complete additional giveaways during Arbor Day week and the holiday market.

The presentation demonstrated TreePlotter inventory and TreePlotter Canopy, software tools staff use to select species and prioritize planting locations by combining point inventories, canopy maps and demographic overlays. Drew explained the TreePlotter display shows 2,000 points at a time for performance reasons while staff maintain a larger inventory: "It only puts out 2,000" on the display, he said, and staff described a current inventory of about 7,000 city-owned trees with additional inventory work to come.

Staff listed neighborhood and park projects planned this season, including Brooks Playground (completed), Timmons Park (about 105 trees to replace storm losses), a Dunbar/Pendleton Street neighborhood project (~102 trees), a Duval Street planting (~48 trees), and approximately 107 right-of-way replacement plantings. Drew described a "Milwaukee method" understory-to-overstory planting approach on some smaller sites to accelerate canopy development.

The council asked how private-property plantings will be handled. Staff said the comprehensive plan will include recommendations and partnership approaches to increase plantings on private land and to help the city target incentives. The council also noted an existing partnership with Trees Upstate that focuses on private-property planting outreach.

On accreditation and plan work, Will said the city expects to receive Level 1 arboretum accreditation in 2024 and plans to apply for Level 2 accreditation in early 2026. The council approved Urban Canopy Works, a woman-owned consulting firm from Cincinnati, to lead the urban forest comprehensive plan. Will said the consultant will begin data collection and stakeholder committee formation in January, followed by public engagement, inventory completion and goal-setting.

Council members raised implementation questions, including whether TreePlotter can track growth over time (staff said it can if periodic measurements are added) and how to distinguish public versus private planting opportunities in the mapping overlay. Staff clarified the inventory tracks sizes (diameter) and that age must be estimated because growth rates vary by species.

The council set a target for the plantings to be installed during the current planting season, which staff said runs through April 2026. The presentation closed with staff and council agreeing to continue coordination through the comprehensive-plan process and public outreach.

The council then moved to an executive-session motion after the presentation; the executive-session items listed were procedural and separate from the tree-plan discussion.